Evaluation

      At the beginning of my FMP I set out to create my own project brief, something I hadn't done before so I found this exciting due to the amount of creative freedom I had. I think this has helped me find what I excel in. After looking at different ideas for my FMP I finally came down to a story driven game, it was sci-fi post apocalyptic genre which involved pirates battling aliens. However a few weeks in I had a change in heart, I wanted to create a MMORPG which still involved the pirates battling aliens: I just felt that creating a MMORPG would give me more freedom and I also felt I would be able to create a better end product.

      After I had my basic end goal I started my research. Firstly I began to look at different art styles and colour pallets present in current games, to find them I looked at current MMORPG whilst doing this I also based my design around a semi-realistic style. After looking at a hand full of games I decided to use a mixture of Guild Wars 2 and Age Of Conans art styles, for the colour pallet I was set on using Age Of Conan's as it was slightly dark and gave me the feeling of a mature and older audience. To gather more research I looked at the following artists; Andrew Baker, Landis Fields, Einar Martinsen, Josh Crockett and Alex Stratulat. The artist mentioned are just for alien reference, to gather reference for pirates I watched Black Sails and Pirates Of The Caribbean. The reason why I researched  the above is because I knew this would help me set a clear path for my end design.

      My research helped me immensely whilst developing my ideas due to creating 3 classes for each faction: Gorg and Pirate, I needed to have a quick work flow and without my research I think that I would of been creating and developing designs at a slower pace. I could look at the above artists work and merge a piece of there work with mine, which i would then develop to make my own. Doing so increased my work flow and I never got stuck for ideas as I had a such a wide range of reference.

     To demonstrate my designs I used the following medias and materials; Photoshop concepts, Clay sculpt, Mudbox and Zbrush 3D bust models. The reason why I decided to use the above is because I knew I could use the software to a decent standard, however the clay sculpt was a gamble as it was only my second time creating a sculpt. Considering it was my second sculpt I decided to play it smart and create my Gorg concept instead of my pirate concept. The reason I did this is because we see the human face everyday so it would be very clear to someone where mistakes or weakness in my sculpt would be, however with my Gorg concept its my personal design so its less likely for someone to see those mistakes.

     During developing ideas I came across successes and failures all of which were obstacles. The first obstacle I came across was I felt that I wouldn't of had enough time to create 5 classes for each faction, I wanted 5 full character classes created and I felt like this was possible at first until I begin to loose track of time. So I had to decide what to do, I dropped the number down from 5 to 3 and I was also going to only design the bust. However I would design different coloured variations of each class for the Gorgs and for the Pirates I would design 3 different designs for each class using the same head for each design. I think this was a success as I feel Ive made the right choice as I don't think it would of been possible to finish all my designs.

     Another problem which was a huge failure was on my Gorg bust sculpt, I left my clay sculpt by the window to dry in the sun. I came to college the next day with a large amount of cracks, little did I know you had to leave the clay to dry in a sightly moist bag to lessen the amount of cracks. To make matters worse whilst I was fixing the cracks the head of the bust fell off from the shoulders and chest. Which left me with a huge problem as I was going to paint my model, to fix this I had to use water to get the dry clay wet again and apply clay where the neck would have been and then reattach the head to the shoulders. After many failed attempts it finally stayed in place and dried. Luckily for my i managed to turn a failed obstacle into a success.

    Another problem I hit was during creating my 3D Mudbox bust I kept getting errors and my computer would crash, the way I managed to get around this was save every 5 minutes. I also had to go down a few sub-divisions when moving over to Maya for renders. Whilst creating my pirate I started on mudbox before moving over to Zbrush, I did this as I more comfortable on Mudbox and I didn't want to waste time getting use to Zbrush. Whilst moving my mudbox file to Zbrush I found a few obstacles such as; getting use to the controls, understanding the tools and understanding the interface. So this slowed me down, however learning to use fibermesh was smoothing I really enjoyed. It was fun to use something new and end up with some crazy hairstyles and beards.

    Whilst I was choosing which designs to use my final pieces (3D sculpts) I had to consider which designs looked best but would also be possible to create in the time I had remaining. I had 2 weeks to create my Gorg bust and my pirate Bust. The reason I chose my Gorg warrior is because I already had a 3D clay sculpt so I could already see how it would look in 3d so I decided to further develop this design into a 3d sculpt. However for the pirate it was out of the captain and ranger classes, because I felt the warlock class would take much longer and I didn't want to hand work in late. I finally came to a conclusion and decided to develop the captain design to a 3d sculpt.

     I think for my final pieces I was really happy with how they turned out, the pirate was slightly on the less realistic side however I still think he would suit my game genre perfectly. The Gorg design is defiantly my strongest piece, I feel that my Gorg design really shows some unique and something I haven't personally seen before. I am currently waiting on feedback from GCtalk and the Zbrush central forums to see how other more experienced artists see my work.

     If I was to do my FMP again I think I would create an animation just because I find it fun and interesting to learn. I would create a short animation and make it send a message, something that makes people feel something, I personally think those moments in animation are the best ones.